This invention relates to a coal-fired furnace utilizing a low load burner and, more particularly, to a splitter for selectively distributing coal and air to the burners associated with said furnace.
In a typical coal-fired furnace, particulate coal is delivered in suspension with the primary air from a pulverizer, or mill, to the burners, and secondary air is provided to supply a sufficient amount of air to support combustion. After initial ignition, the coal is thus caused to burn due to local recirculation of the gases and flame from the combustion process which provides ignition energy to maintain the burning of the coal aided by the radiation from the flame in the furnace and from the furnace walls and conduction from the flame in the furnace.
In these types of arrangements, the coal readily burns after the furnace has been operating over a fairly long period of time. However, for providing ignition flame during startup and for warming up the furnace walls, the convection surfaces and the air preheater, the mixture of primary air and coal from conventional main burners is usually too lean and is not conducive to burning under these relatively cold circumstances. Therefore, it has been the common practice to provide oil or gas fired ignitors and/or guns for warming up the furnace walls, convection surfaces and the air preheater, since these fuels have the advantages of a greater ease of ignition and, therfore require less heat to initiate combustion. The ignitors are usually started by an electrical sparking device or swab and the guns are usually lit by an ignitor or by a high energy or high tension electrical device.
Another application of auxiliary fuels to a coal-fired furnace is during reduced load conditions when the coal supply, and therefore the stability of the coal flame, is decreased. Under these conditions, the oil or gas ignitors and/or guns are used to maintain flame stability in the furnace and thus avoid accumulation of unburned coal dust in the furnace.
However, in recent times, the foregoing advantages of oil or gas-fired warmup and low load guns have been negated by the skyrocketing costs and decreasing availability of these fuels. This situation is compounded by the ever-increasing change in operation of coal-fired burners from the traditional base loaded mode to that of cycling, or shifting, modes which place even more heavy demands on supplemental oil and gas systems to support these types of units.
These problems were largely solved in the arrangement disclosed in applicant's U.S. Pat. No. 4,412,496, also assigned to the assignee of the present invention. In this arrangement a splitter is provided in the main conduit leading from the pulverizer which includes a movable damper for splitting the stream of coal and air into two separate streams. One stream from the splitter is connected to a separator in which a quantity of air is separated from the mixture of air and coal. A low load burner assembly is provided which includes a first nozzle connected to the separator for discharging the bulk of the coal flow and some air into the furnace, and a second nozzle connected to the same separator for discharging the bulk of the air from the separator into the furnace. The other stream from the splitter is connected to a third nozzle which discharges its mixture of air and coal into the furnace to provide high load capability.
However, it was found that control of both the coal and air with a single damper was not as effective as was anticipated. That is, the diversion of the solids along the upper wall of the splitter housing by the damper was not complete enough under all conditions of operation. Also some solids would slide along the damper blade in a downward fashion and slip into a gap formed between the damper and the housing thereby causing an unbalance to the desired flow mixture of solids and air to each of the downstream conduits. Also the damper blade was prone to excessive erosion due to its constant exposure to the abrasive coal particles.